ACDG5: Demogame, anyone (especially newbies)?

[vyeh]

Zeiter,

Are you interested in faction-wide role or being governor?

[Nims]

What faction-wide roles are still unoccupied ?

[vyeh]

Originally posted by Nims
What faction-wide roles are still unoccupied ?

We have a faction leader and a turn player.

(1) Are you interested in either of those positions?

At the beginning of the game, the two roles that suggest themselves are (a) and (b) chief scientist.

[vyeh]

Tim,

Please edit the first post of The Voting Booth to add at the top:

"The Voting Booth is part of the Alpha Centauri Democracy Game 5 ("ACDG5")."

This refers readers to the ACDG5 index.

You can get the original http code by using the quote button.

Thanks.

[vyeh]

Mart,

I've created a master index It is located here. Your comments are welcomed.

I've also started a turn posting thread. Please post the game there.

Edit: I added news, setup, rules, welcome and thread organization.

[vyeh]

Mart,

Here is a draft of the news item for the SMAC section:

ACDG5 lands on Chiron!

__ June 2008, _____

The fifth Alpha Centauri Democracy Game launches. In an Alpha Centauri alternate reality, the surviving Unity officers subdued UN Commissioner Lal before landing.

Leading the Unity Command faction (which has no bonuses, penalties or social engineering aversions), their mission is to subdue the other six factions and conquer Planet.

This game is specifically geared to players new to democracy and multiplaying games. Veteran SMAC players are invited to drop by and offer advice.

The CMN is Mart.

[vyeh]

Mart,

Give some thought to the role you'd like to play after you've completed the game.

Of course, you are the referee. I would be willing to help you police the thread for any indication of cheating.

I'm thinking of keeping a running narration of the game. Would you be interested in being part of that?

I'll leave it to you if you want to participate in the game. A few cryptic hints at the right time might help the game along. I certainly would have no problem if you want to govern a base.

[Mart]

How about this, I put longer sentence in the objectives part, also stated stronger that it is vanila SMAC game. We do not need to name anyone here, everyone can read more details in the thread, so I removed last sentence. that would be all from me, back to you.
--------------------
ACDG5 lands on Chiron!

__ June 2008, _____

The fifth Alpha Centauri Democracy Game launches. In an Alpha Centauri alternate reality, the surviving Unity officers subdued UN Commissioner Lal before landing.

Leading the Unity Command faction (which has no bonuses, penalties or social engineering aversions), their mission is to restore unity and cooperation among the expedition leaders or, if necessary, to subdue them and conquer their factions on the Planet.

This game is specifically geared to players new to democracy and multiplaying games. This is vanila SMAC game and veteran players are invited to drop by and offer advice.

--------------------

[Mart]

I was thinking about writing some stories, and referee function, that is ok. If I participate as a player, that potentially might break the game - it might be difficult not to be influenced by knowledge of the scenario.

[timsup2nothin]

Lots going on here...

I will amend my post with 'termplayer' in it to read 'Logistical Specialist', unless you can suggest a better term. I will also fix the voting thread as requested.

Quick responses to specific points:

(1) One of the reasons that it is helpful to finalize the structure before filling positions is that no one has a vested interest in unbalancing the structure in his favor. Of course, there will be tension between the base governors and the faction governance. That is one reason we (and I was one of them) worked out a proposal for the ACDG4 game that never happened. Exempting the potentially most powerful base reduces the tension. The tension contributes to the demo game politics, which adds to the fun. So the fact that the capital is likely to be the major "power base" is a reason in my role as organizer to want it outside the direct control of the faction government.

I was thinking in terms of the balance between base commanders. more than between one commander and 'the government', but I see your point.

(2) Re drone issues: Who is better able to deal with it? A democracy or a veteran player (like Maniac or me). In ACDG3, the Data Angels razed their HQ (to prevent infiltration -- it really is as stupid as it sounds). The decision was made democratically. Worst, the DA's never built a new HQ! In contrast the victorious Spartans assigned units to individual players.

Best to deal with it? On one hand, a veteran player. On the other hand, I can see the faction as a whole considering SE adjustments to control rioting in the capital that they may be less inclined to consider to control rioting they can pass off as the base commander's problem.

(3) I never said the capital is "just a base." The fact that it is "not just a base" is even more reason to assign it to an individual.

I never said that you were saying that it is, I was just saying that it isn't. At the time I had not seen your reasoning for assigning it to Maniac.

(4) Within the structure I established, there are alternative ways of addressing your concerns:
(a) Major power center. As I stated to Joe, the democracy council can establish general policies about bases. We actually worked out a proposal in our failed ACDG4. This included the production of units (but any mandate has to require equivalent effort by all bases). SP's have to be approved by the entire faction. I would expect some politicing. Base governor agrees to do something because he is asked to and because he may need some faction funds in the future. And, most importantly, everybody (including the CMN) wants the faction to win. Disagreements will be over tactics. If there is general agreement that a certain action is the right action, the governor will do it.
(b) Drone issues. The democracy council can establish policies about building drone reducing facilities or simply pass a policy saying no governor shall let his base fall into drone riots.

It's those 'mandates' and 'equivalent efforts' that caused my concern. The governor of the capital will be affected in a completely different way by most faction policies.

(5) As initial discussion in The Wardroom shows, there are plenty of interesting issues to discuss and vote on. I think players will lose interest in whether a former should plant a forest 2 squares SSE of HQ, whether a crawler should harvest 2 mins 2 squares NNW of HQ, whether HQ should build a 2-2-2 laser rover, whether a worker should be moved from 1 sq. S of HQ to 1 sq. W of HQ (and HQ could have three or more formers).

I agree that the details should be managed by an individual. I just think people might get just as tired of 'okay you governors, we're in trouble and we need a faction wide push to do this...except governor Maniac because the capital has special needs/functions. I honestly thought the capital would have such faction wide demands put on it that its commander would feel constrained.


Just as an aside...I don't think I ever came on really strong on the SMAC/SMAX question. I think my vote was something like 'the arguments for SMAC make more sense to me...and it was, I think, your original comments about 'more accessible' that leaned me that way. If Maniac or anyone else is turned off that's really unfortunate and was not in any way my intent. Whether we currently have any SMAC only folk in attendance, we may still draw some before we're done, so I still think it's for the best..

[vyeh]

I'll think some more about it. Maniac might prefer a non HQ base precisely because of your reasoning.

I don't see the capital as necessarily the best place to build SP's. Although those monoliths look nice in the early game, in the middle game and late game, they can be irritating BECAUSE they only produce 2 minerals.

The HQ is nice because it has no loss due to inefficiency and it gets an extra energy unit, but you will have to go further to convince me that the capital will be affected necessarily different by most faction policies.

There are two things that bother me:
(1) Faction governance getting bogged down in the minutia of terraforming decisions. Faction governance should be better than micromanagement. It should have to do with faction wide matters: vendetta or truce or treaty or pact, what to research, waging vendetta, social engineering. Besides portraying democracy better, micromanagement may be tedious for some. By having governors of all bases, those who want to micromanage can be a governor. Those who want to avoid it won't see it.
(2) If HQ is runned by faction leaders and other bases are not, will that skew the choice of where to build SP's?

I'll have to think more about this, but I'm also concerned about getting the game organized (which is another reason to declare that the matter was settled when the game specs went to Mart). Allowing this matter to be reopened could be detrimental to the game. Mart could be posting this game Monday. Do we really want to be discussing this issue rather than turn playing?

[Maniac]

I'm not particularly interested in being HQ governor. I didn't like it though that the game isn't SMAX and the faction is flat. Overall I don't think I will participate in this ACDG. Nor should you make special accomodations for me, for I was never planning to be as active in this ACDG as in previous ones anyway. Sorry!

[vyeh]

I'm sorry too.

[vyeh]

Originally posted by Mart
I was thinking about writing some stories, and referee function, that is ok. If I participate as a player, that potentially might break the game - it might be difficult not to be influenced by knowledge of the scenario.

Mart,

Should we set up a thread in AC stories (it would be in the index)? I'd like to see a description a la Darsnan at the beginning.

Your revisions are fine. I PM'd DanQ yesterday asking if there was someone besides Illuminatus that we could submit the news to. He received the message but I have had no reply.

Should we try PM'ing Illuminatus (maybe he hasn't posted because of RL)?

[Petek]

Solver is now listed as a mod for this forum. You might wish to PM him.

Petek